a summary of Pope Francis exhortation on marriage and family, (amaoris laetitia) chapter 4 dealing with the education of the children

1. Amoris Laetitia
Chapter 7
Towards a better
education of
children
 Where are our children? (260-262)
 The ethical formation of children
(263-267)
 The value of correction as an
incentive (268-270)
 Patient realism 271-273)
 Family life as an educational setting
(274-279)
 The need for sex education (280-286)
 Passing on the faith (287-290)

2. Only if we devote time to our children, speaking of important things
with simplicity and concern, and finding healthy ways for them to spend
their time, will we be able to shield them from harm. AL 260

3. help them grow in
freedom, maturity,
overall discipline
and real autonomy.
Only in this way
will children come
to possess the
wherewithal needed
to fend for
themselves and to
act intelligently and
prudently whenever
they meet with
difficulties.
AL 261

4. Education includes encouraging the responsible use of freedom to face issues
with good sense and intelligence. It involves forming persons who readily
understand that their own lives, and the life of the community,
are in their hands, and that freedom is itself a great gift. AL 262

5. Parents rely on schools to ensure the basic instruction of their children, but can
never completely delegate the moral formation of their children to others. AL 263

6. Moral formation should always take place with active methods and a dialogue that teaches
through sensitivity and by using a language children can understand. AL 264

7. A good ethical education includes
showing a person that it is in his
own interest to do what is right. AL 265

8. Good habits need to be developed. Even childhood habits
can help to translate important interiorized values
into sound and steady ways of acting. AL 266

9. Moral education has to do with cultivating freedom through ideas,
incentives, practical applications, stimuli, rewards, examples, models,
symbols, reflections, encouragement, dialogue and a constant rethinking
of our way of doing things; all these can help develop those stable
interior principles that lead us spontaneously to do good. AL 267

10. Virtue is a conviction that has become a steadfast inner principle
of operation. The virtuous life thus builds, strengthens and
shapes freedom, lest we become slaves of dehumanizing
and antisocial inclinations. AL 267

11. It is also essential to help children and adolescents to realize that misbehaviour
has consequences. They need to be encouraged to put themselves in other
people’s shoes and to acknowledge the hurt they have caused. AL 268

12. A child who does
something wrong
must be corrected,
but never treated
as an enemy
or an object
on which to take
out one’s own
frustrations.
AL 269

13. Adults also need to realize that some kinds of misbehaviour
have to do with the frailty and limitations typical of youth.

14. An attitude constantly prone to punishment would be harmful and not
help children to realize that some actions are more serious than others.
It would lead to discouragement and resentment: AL 269
“Parents, do not provoke
your children”
(Eph 6:4; cf. Col 3:21).

15. It is important that discipline not lead to discouragement,
but be instead a stimulus to further progress. AL 270

16. Ordinarily this is done by proposing small steps that can be understood,
accepted and appreciated, while including a proportionate sacrifice. AL 271

17. Ethical formation is at times frowned upon,
due to experiences of neglect, disappointment,
lack of affection or poor models of parenting. AL 272

18. In proposing values,
we have to proceed
slowly, taking into
consideration the
child’s age and
abilities, without
presuming to apply
rigid and inflexible
methods.
AL 273

19. A distinction is not always adequately drawn between “voluntary” and “free” acts.
A person may clearly and willingly desire something evil, but do so
as the result of an irresistible passion or a poor upbringing. AL 273

20. Certain inclinations develop in childhood and become
so deeply rooted that they remain throughout life,
either as attractions to a particular value or
a natural repugnance to certain ways of acting. AL 274

21. In the family we can also learn to be critical about certain
messages sent by the various media. Sad to say, some television
programmes or forms of advertising often negatively influence
and undercut the values inculcated in family life. AL 274

22. when we are taught to postpone some things until the right moment,
we learn self-mastery and detachment from our impulses.
When children realize that they have to be responsible
for themselves, their self-esteem is enriched. AL 275

23. The family is the primary setting for socialization,
since it is where we first learn to re-ate to others,
to listen and share, to be patient and show respect,
to help one another and live as one. AL 276

24. In the family too, we can rethink our habits of consumption and join in caring
for the environment as our common home. “The family is the principal agent
of an integral ecology, be-cause it is the primary social subject which contains
within it the two fundamental principles of human civilization on earth:
the principle of communion and the principle of fruitfulness”. AL 277

25. The educational process that occurs be-tween parents and children
can be helped or hindered by the increasing sophistication of
the communications and entertainment media. AL 278

26. When children
are made to feel
that only their
parents can
be trusted,
this hinders
an adequate
process of
socialization
and growth
in affective
maturity.
AL 279

27. Catholic schools should
be encouraged in their
mission to help pupils
grow into mature adults
who can view the world
with the love of Jesus
and who can
understand life as
a call to serve God”.
For this reason, “
the Church strongly
affirms her freedom to set
forth her teaching and
the right of conscientious
objection on the part of
educators”. AL 279

28. The need for sex education –
It can only be seen within the broader
framework of an education for love,
for mutual self-giving. In such a way, the
language of sexuality would not be sadly
impoverished but illuminated and enriched.

29. The sexual urge can be directed through
a process of growth in self-knowledge
and self-control capable of nurturing
valuable capacities for joy
and for loving encounter. AL 280

30. Sex education should provide
information while keeping in
mind that children and young
people have not yet attained full
maturity. The information has to
come at a proper time and in
a way suited to their age.
It is not helpful to overwhelm
them with data without also
helping them to develop a
critical sense in dealing with
the onslaught of new ideas
and suggestions, the flood of
pornography and the overload of
stimuli that can deform sexuality.
Young people need to realize
that they are bombarded by
messages that are not beneficial
for their growth towards maturity.
AL 281

31. A sexual
education
that fosters a
healthy sense
of modesty has
immense value,
however much
some people
nowadays
consider
modesty a
relic of a
bygone era.

32. Modesty is a
natural means
whereby we
defend our
personal privacy
and prevent
ourselves from
being turned
into objects
to be used.

33. Without a sense of modesty,
affection and sexuality
can be reduced to an
obsession with genitality
and unhealthy behaviours
that distort our capacity
for love, and with forms of
sexual violence that lead
to inhuman treatment or
cause hurt to others. AL 282

34. Frequently, sex education deals primarily with “protection” through the
practice of “safe sex”. Such expressions convey a negative attitude towards
the natural procreative finality of sexuality, as if an eventual
child were an enemy to be protected against.

35. This way of thinking promotes narcissism and aggressivity in place
of acceptance. It is always irresponsible to invite adolescents
to toy with their bodies and their desires, as if they possessed the
maturity, values, mutual commitment and goals proper to marriage.

36. They end up
being blithely
encouraged
to use other
persons as
a means of
fulfilling their
needs or
limitations.

37. The important thing is to teach them sensitivity to different expressions of love,
mutual concern and care, loving respect and deeply meaningful communication.
All of these prepare them for an integral and generous gift of self that will
be expressed, following a public commitment, in the gift of their bodies.
Sexual union in marriage will thus appear as a sign of an all-inclusive
commitment, enriched by everything that has preceded it. AL 283

38. Young people should
not be deceived into
confusing two
levels of reality:
sexual attraction creates,
for the moment,
the illusion of union,
yet, without love,
this ‘union’ leaves
strangers as far apart
as they were before”.
The language of the
body calls for a patient
apprenticeship
in learning to interpret
and channel desires in
view of authentic self-
giving. AL 284

39. Sex education should
also include respect and
appreciation for differences,
as a way of helping the young
to overcome their self-
absorption and to be open
and accepting of others.
Beyond the understandable
difficulties which individuals may
experience, the young need to be
helped to accept their own body
as it was created,
for “thinking that we enjoy
absolute power over our own
bodies turns, often subtly, into
thinking that we enjoy absolute
power over creation

40. An appreciation of our body
as male or female is also
necessary for our own self-awareness
in an en-counter with others different
from ourselves.
In this way we can joyfully accept
the specific gifts of another man or
woman, the work of God the Creator,
and find mutual enrichment”.
Only by losing the fear of being
different, can we be freed of self-
centredness and self-absorption.
Sex education should help young
people to accept their own bodies and
to avoid the pretension
“to cancel out sexual difference
because one no longer knows
how to deal with it”.

41. the configuration of our own mode of being, whether as male or female,
is not simply the result of biolog-ical or genetic factors, but of multiple elements
having to do with temperament, family history, culture, experience, education, the
influence of friends, family members and respected persons, as well as other formative
situations. It is true that we cannot separate the masculine and the feminine from
God’s work of creation, which is prior to all our decisions and experiences,
and where biological elements exist which are impossible to ignore. - AL 286

42. Pass on the faith - the home must continue to be the place where we learn to
appreciate the meaning and beauty of the faith, to pray and to serve our neighbour
Handing on the faith presumes that parents themselves genuinely trust God,
seek him and sense their need for him, for only in this way does
“one generation laud your works to another, and declare your mighty acts” (Ps 144:4)

43. Since adolescents
usually have issues
with authority and
rules, it is best to
encourage their own
experience of faith
and to provide them
with attractive
testimonies that win
them over by their
sheer beauty.
AL 288

44. It is essential that children actually see that, for their parents, prayer is something truly
important. Hence moments of family prayer and acts of devotion can be more powerful
for evangelization than any catechism class or sermon. Al 288

45. Children who grew up in missionary families often become
missionaries themselves; growing up in warm and friendly
families, they learn to relate to the world in this way,
without giving up their faith or their convictions. AL 289

46. The family is thus an agent of pastoral activity through its explicit proclamation
of the Gospel and its legacy of varied forms of witness, namely solidarity with
the poor, openness to a diversity of people, the protection of creation, moral
and material solidarity with other families, including those most in need,

47. commitment to the promotion of the common good and the
transformation of unjust social structures, beginning in
the territory in which the family lives, through the practice
of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy”. AL 290

48. LIST OF PRESENTATIONS IN ENGLISH
Revised 27-5-2020
Advent and Christmas – time of hope and peace
Amoris Laetitia – ch 1 – In the Light of the Word
Amoris Laetitia – ch 2 – The Experiences and Challenges of Families
Amoris Laetitia – ch 3 - Looking to Jesus, the Vocation of the Family
Amoris Laetitia – ch 4 - Love in Marriage
Amoris Laetitia – ch 5 – Love made Fruitfuol
Amoris Laetitia – ch 6 – Some Pastoral Perspectives
Amoris Laetitia – ch 7 – Towards a better education of children
Amoris Laetitia – ch 8 – Accompanying, discerning and integrating weaknwss
Amoris Laetitia – ch 9 – The Spirituality of Marriage and the Family
Beloved Amazon 1ª – A Social Dream
Beloved Amazon 2 - A Cultural Dream
Beloved Amazon 3 – An Ecological Dream
Beloved Amazon 4 - An Ecclesiastical Dream
Carnival
Christ is Alive
Familiaris Consortio (FC) 1 – Church and Family today
Familiaris Consortio (FC) 2 - God’s plan for the family
Familiaris Consortio (FC) 3 – 1 – family as a Community
Familiaris Consortio (FC) 3 – 2 – serving life and education
Familiaris Consortio (FC) 3 – 3 – mission of the family in society
Familiaris Consortio (FC) 3 – 4 - Family in the Church
Familiaris Consortio (FC) 4 Pastoral familiar
Football in Spain
Haurietis aquas – devotion to the Sacred Heart by Pius XII
Holidays and Holy Days
Holy Spirit
Holy Week – drawings for children
Holy Week – glmjpses of the last hours of JC
Inauguration of President Donald Trump
Juno explores Jupiter
Laudato si 1 – care for the common home
Laudato si 2 – Gospel of creation
Laudato si 3 – Human roots of the ecological crisis
Laudato si 4 – integral ecology
Laudato si 5 – lines of approach and action
Laudato si 6 – Education y Ecological Spirituality
Love and Marriage 1-
Love and Marriage 2 – growing up to sexual maturity
Love and Marriage 3 – psychological differences and complimentarity
Love and Marriage 4- causes of sexual attraction
Love and Marriage 5- freedom and intimacy
Love and Marriage 6 - human love
Love and Marriage 7 - destiny of human love
Love and Marriage 8- marriage between Christian believers
Love and Marriage 9 – sacrament of marriage
Lumen Fidei – ch 1,2,3,4
Medjugore Pilgrimage
Misericordiae Vultus in English
Mother Teresa of Calcuta – Saint
Pope Franciss in Thailand
Pope Francis in Japan
Pope Francis in Sweden
Pope Francis in America
Pope Francis in the WYD in Poland 2016
Pope Francis in the U.S.A. -1 ,2, 3
Querida Amazonia
Resurrection of Jesus Christ –according to the Gospels
Russian Revolution and Communismo 3 civil war 1918.1921
Russian Revolution and Communism 1
Russian Revolution and Communismo 2
Saint Joseph
Saint Patrick and Ireland
Sunday – day of the Lord
Thanksgiving – History and Customs
The Body, the cult – (Eucharist)
Valentine
Vocation – mconnor@legionaries.org
Way of the Cross – drawings for children
For commentaries – email – mflynn@legionaries.org
Fb – Martin M Flynn
Donations to - Congregación Legionarios de Cristo
IBAN: ES3700491749852910000635
Swift Code (BIC): BSCHESMMXXX
Dirección banco: Plaza de Parma, 8, Montequinto. CP 41700 Dos
Hermanas, Sevilla. España.

49. LISTA DE PRESENTACIONES EN ESPAÑOL
Revisado 27-5-2020
Abuelos
Adviento y Navidad, tiempo de esperanza
Amor y Matrimonio 1 - 9
Amoris Laetitia – ch 1 – A la luz de la Palabre
Amoris Laetitia – ch 2 – Realidad y Desafíos de las Familias
Amoris Laetitia – ch 3 La mirada puesta en Jesús: Vocación de la Familia
Amoris Laetitia – ch 4 - El Amor en el Matrimonio
Amoris Laetitia – ch 5 – Amor que se vuelve fecundo
Amoris Laetitia – ch 6 – Algunas Perspectivas Pastorales
Amoris Laetitia – ch 7 – Fortalecer la educacion de los hijos
Amoris Laetitia – ch 8 – Acompañar, discernir e integrar la fragilidad
Amoris Laetitia – ch 9 – Espiritualidad Matrimonial y Familiar
Carnaval
Cristo Vive
Domingo – día del Señor
El camino de la cruz de JC en dibujos para niños
El Cuerpo, el culto – (eucarisía)
Espíritu Santo
Familiaris Consortio (FC) 1 – iglesia y familia hoy
Familiaris Consortio (FC) 2 - el plan de Dios para la familia
Familiaris Consortio (FC) 3 – 1 – familia como comunidad
Familiaris Consortio (FC) 3 – 2 – servicio a la vida y educación
Familiaris Consortio (FC) 3 – 3 – misión de la familia en la sociedad
Familiaris Consortio (FC) 3 – 4 - participación de la familia en la iglesia
Familiaris Consortio (FC) 4 Pastoral familiar
Fátima – Historia de las Apariciones de la Virgen
Feria de Sevilla
Haurietis aquas – el culto al Sagrado Corazón
Hermandades y cofradías
Hispanidad
Laudato si 1 – cuidado del hogar común
Laudato si 2 – evangelio de creación
Laudato si 3 – La raíz de la crisis ecológica
Laudato si 4 – ecología integral
Laudato si 5 – líneas de acción
Laudato si 6 – Educación y Espiritualidad Ecológica
Lumen Fidei – cap 1,2,3,4
Madre Teresa de Calcuta – Santa
María y la Biblia
Medjugore peregrinación
Misericordiae Vultus en Español
Papa Francisco en Bulgaria
Papa Francisco en Rumania
Papa Francisco en Marruecos
Papa Francisco en México
Papa Francisco – mensaje para la Jornada Mundial Juventud 2016
Papa Francisco – visita a Chile
Papa Francisco – visita a Perú
Papa Francisco en Colombia 1 + 2
Papa Francisco en Cuba
Papa Francisco en Fátima
Papa Francisco en la JMJ 2016 – Polonia
Queridas Amazoznia 1 un sueños social
Queridas Amazoznia 2 un suepo cultural
Queridas Amazoznia 3 un seuños ecologico
Queridas Amazoznia 4 un sueño eclesial
Resurrección de Jesucristo – según los Evangelios
Revolución Rusa y Comunismo 1
Revolución Rusa y comunismo 2
Revolución Rusa y Comunismo 3
San José
Santiago Apóstol
Semana santa – Vistas de las últimas horas de JC
Vacaciones Cristianas
Valentín
Vocación – www.vocación.org
Para comentarios – email – mflynn@lcegionaries.org
fb – martin m. flynn
Donativos a - Congregación Legionarios de Cristo
IBAN: ES3700491749852910000635
Swift Code (BIC): BSCHESMMXXX
Dirección banco: Plaza de Parma, 8, Montequinto. CP 41700
Dos Hermanas, Sevilla. España.